If I'm reaching out to offer what I may have to help you, Open Eyes, I don't care what johnny-come-lately's opinion of me and my helping you might be; I'm talking to you and not anyone else. One can only communicate/talk to a single person at a time, I can only hear you when you talk and, hopefully, you will read and think of me, when I talk. Johnny/Jenny-come-lately is not my concern and I have no trouble ignoring a person not discussing the problem at hand.

I do read them and think about what they have to say to/about me in case there's something there I want to learn. Criticism is always the other person's opinion of you, it is not the facts about you! Only you know yourself well enough to have a "true" knowledge of yourself and what is best for you.

I am fairly straight-forward. I say what I mean and I back up what I say 100%. I don't delete my posts, I deliberately made a decision not to on another forum like this about 20 years ago and to support myself and what I write. I can not understand a problem correctly and say things that end up not being what the poster I'm responding to was asking about. When I understand that to be true, I apologize and explain what I was thinking and how I made my mistake.

If I respond to a poster and they feel I am "mean" or "not supportive" that's their perception. I have been on this board and others like it since the mid-1990's when they started and have learned an enormous amount about myself and others that I have, over the years, put into practice. I'm not responsible for how others view me! I'm not responsible for others misperceptions. Because the other person perceives me as "mean" or "not supportive" does not mean I am or that they understand my point of view or, what I am saying. It does not mean that I said what I had to say in the "best" way possible, just in the way I decided to say it. Hearing something we don't want to hear is often quite painful and I'm fine with another deciding what I have said is wrong, hurtful, poorly worded, harmful, whatever way they perceive it.

I am comfortable with myself, in all my guises. I have no trouble apologizing if I think I made a mistake; one cannot learn except through mistakes because getting things "right" means you "know" whatever it is whereas getting it wrong shows you what you need to learn. I don't take it "personally" because I know who I am and what I want and someone else isn't easily going to come along and shake that?